My Birth Story by Fiona Cain

By Web Editor

My twin sons are now five years old so their birth story is a little old but it is of course a day you never forget.

This was my second pregnancy. My daughter had been born naturally at 40 weeks and when I found out I was expecting twins, I wanted things to be the same for them. My consultant gave me hope – during one scan he commented that the twins were developing in line with singletons. Size apart, I had a healthy pregnancy and worked until I was 35 weeks pregnant. The twins showed no sign of putting in an early appearance and the consultant was quite happy to wait even though this meant I spent the last three months of my pregnancy looking like I was about to drop, which of course led to questions from everyone everywhere – “should you be out in your condition?”, “how many have you got in there?” and others that I am sure are familiar to some of you.

My waters broke when I was 38 weeks +4 days pregnant, just as I was going to bed after a tiring Thursday with my active 2 year old daughter. A scan at the hospital showed that twin 1’s head was engaged. The exact position of twin 2 was not completely clear (he had been termed unstable during a few scans because he hadn’t maintained the same position) but the doctors were happy for me to go ahead and try and deliver the twins naturally. First, however, they suggested I try and get some sleep so I had a broken night’s sleep at the hospital. By the morning, I knew the twins were ready to make an appearance. As recommended I had an epidural, not because I felt I needed one at that stage but because I had been told that it may be beneficial if I needed some assistance with my second twin.

My first son was born naturally four hours later and after a quick hello from me, he was handed to his dad whilst I got on with delivering twin two. We had learnt at 12 weeks by mistake that we were expecting one boy but as we had not wanted to know the sex of either of the twins had kept this a secret, in part kidding ourselves that the sonographer was wrong, and hadn’t found out the sex of the other twin, so that we still had a surprise at the birth.

I now know, my second son is very laid back, and unfortunately he was in no rush to join his brother. Despite my best attempts and those of the midwives, he was not budging. Even the consultant tried to see if he could persuade him but to no avail. So 30 minutes later, Dad was left holding the baby and I was whisked off to theatre.

My abiding memories of that day is how quickly, once the decision was made, I was transferred to theatre and secondly the sheer number of doctors, nurses and midwives that were present when I arrived. As we all know, twins are an attraction and this was still the case in a hospital. However, the consultant took control of the situation and asked anyone who didn’t need to be there to leave. By this stage my husband and first son had arrived in theatre and things moved swiftly from there with my second son being born by caesarean section shortly after I arrived in theatre. I was soon able to have a cuddle from both of my sons.

When we had considered our options prior to the birth of our boys, I had said I would like to have a natural birth if at all possible and was reluctant to have a caesarean just because I wanted the same for them as their sister. However, if a caesarean was recommended, then I would accept that. I did however say repeatedly that I didn’t want to end up having both. Whilst that is what happened, it was what was needed for my boys to be delivered fit and healthy into the world.

If I had my time again, would I do it this way? Yes, I probably would. One advantage, I found was that the recovery from a natural birth was much easier second time around, although you need a caesarean to achieve that.

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